Universe

Place of Birth

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History

Jamie Madrox's mutant ability was apparent at birth when a duplicate was created upon his being slapped by the doctor. Two weeks later, Jamie's father resigned from the Los Alamos Nuclear Research Center and moved his family to an intentionally isolated farm in Kansas at the suggestion of Professor Charles Xavier. Later, Damien Tryp, of Singularity Investigations, made his own offer to look after Jamie, claiming that Jamie was not in fact a mutant, but a "changeling," a predecessor to mutants whom develop their powers at birth. Jamie's parents, however, refused to give Jamie to Tryp. From a young age, Madrox was given a special suit to wear that would neutralize his mutant power, but before this could be explained to him a freak tornado killed his parents when he was 15, recently revealed to have been caused by Tryp.

Madrox spent the next six years alone caring for his parents' farm. When he was 21, malfunctioning control elements in the suit caused a power surge that released his inhibited power and caused the suit to begin absorbing ambient electrical energy. Confused, frightened, and driven mad by isolation, Madrox felt himself drawn to New York City. There, he clashed with the Fantastic Four until Xavier arrived to defuse the situation. With the help of Xavier and Reed Richards, Madrox's suit was repaired and he accompanied Xavier back to his mansion in Westchester. There, Madrox's temporary madness was cured and, after learning to cope with his powers, he was invited to join the X-Men. He declined, and instead accompanied Xavier to Muir Island where he became a laboratory assistant to mutant researcher Doctor Moira MacTaggart. Madrox's ability proved invaluable to MacTaggart, and he quickly became a regular fixture on Muir. Unfortunately, Madrox also found himself battling against threats such as the alien Eric the Red and the reality-altering mutant Proteus, who possessed one of Madrox's duplicates in order to escape confinement on Muir. Proteus's possession instantly killed the duplicate, and for the first time Madrox felt the severe psychic backlash this caused. After Proteus was defeated, Madrox again declined to join the X-Men, preferring to remain on Muir with Moira and her lover, the X-Man Banshee. Soon after, Banshee's daughter Siryn came to live on Muir, she and Madrox ultimately grew close.

Eventually, one of Madrox's duplicates sought to remain apart from the original and live his own life. To this end, he drugged the original Madrox and joined Moira and Siryn on a trip to the U.S. to search for Sunspot and Warlock, two missing members of the New Mutants. Eventually finding the runaway mutants as members of the Vanisher's teenage gang, the Fallen Angels, the duplicate Madrox and Siryn were persuaded to join by the alien Ariel. During their time with the group, the duplicate Madrox and Siryn engaged in a brief romance. Eventually, the true nature of the Fallen Angels was revealed to be a ruse by aliens from the Coconut Grove dimension who sought to cure their race's stalled evolution by experimenting on mutants. Defeating the aliens, the team returned to Earth, but apparently disbanded soon after. The duplicate and Siryn rejoined Moira at the Xavier Institute to return to Muir; however, the duplicate had no desire to be reabsorbed and so created another duplicate to take his place on the return trip while he secretly remained in the U.S.

Later, the original Madrox was possessed by the psionic entity the Shadow King during the villain's takeover of Muir; after his defeat Madrox joined the government-sponsored X-Factor team. Unknown to Madrox, the duplicate that had joined the Fallen Angels years before had since found a place in the Nasty Boys, a team of super-powered mercenaries employed by geneticist Mister Sinister. With the help of Senator Stephen Shaffran, a.k.a. Ricochet, a mutant with the ability to turn other mutants' powers and fears against them, the duplicate convinced the Nasty Boys, and Madrox himself, that he was the original. Madrox merged with the duplicate, but it was a ruse; he "disassembled" the duplicate from the inside and remained the dominant personality in order to expose Shaffran and stop Sinister.

Later, when most of the team were busy with another assignment, Madrox and his teammate Quicksilver were sent to investigate a murder case in Maine in which the prime suspect was a young mutant named Rachel Argosy, a.k.a. Rhapsody, who had been fired from her music teaching job after turning blue and first manifesting her ability to entrance others with music. The man responsible for terminating her employment was found dead two days later, with Rhapsody apprehended at the scene of the crime. Exposed to the effects of Rhapsody's power, Madrox became convinced of her innocence and was set to break her out of prison when the truth was revealed. Rhapsody had used her power on the victim in an effort to make him see the error of his decision to fire her, only to accidentally cause his death.

Following an attempted assassination of Xavier supposedly by the mutant soldier from the future, Cable, X-Factor and the X-Men teamed up to capture Cable's team of young mutants, X-Force. Among X-Force's number was Siryn, who confronted Madrox over their past relationship. Madrox revealed to Siryn that although he retained all the memories of her relationship with his renegade duplicate, he possessed none of the related emotional attachment.

Among his X-Factor teammates, Madrox formed a close bond with Guido Carosella, a.k.a. Strong Guy. The pair shared an odd sense of humor and often joked around much to team leader Havok's chagrin. A psychiatric analysis by Doctor Leonard Samson ultimately revealed the reason for Madrox's humorous attitude. His living alone for many years as a child created an almost pathological need for attention to ensure he would never be alone again, and he was willing to do virtually anything - whether it be telling jokes, playing gags, or creative use of dupes - to get people to notice him.

During a subsequent mission with X-Factor to the island nation of Genosha, one of Madrox's duplicates contracted the deadly Legacy Virus; when reabsorbed, it was believed Madrox himself was infected. The mutant prophetess Haven offered to cure Madrox of the Virus, but the attempt failed and he seemingly died. However, Madrox unconsciously stayed split into separate bodies, ensuring that the Virus would be contained in one body and not duplicate into the others. When the infected body died, the shock of its death caused Madrox to lose his memory. Later, X-Factor was sent on a mission to apprehend a mysterious figure that was revealed to be Madrox, alive and well with his memory restored. Madrox had been recruited by elements of the U.S. government that wanted to turn him into the ultimate secret agent, training him to become a one-man army. Madrox ultimately rejoined X-Factor until the team's disbanding after the apparent death of its leader, Havok. He then returned to Muir Island where he was reunited with both Moira and his X-Factor teammate Wolfsbane. Madrox subsequently worked in Genosha at the behest of Professor X to monitor the situation there after the rise to power of mutant activist Magneto.

Madrox was then recruited by Banshee into the paramilitary X-Corps organization for which Madrox created duplicates to function as support staff performing duties ranging from communications monitoring to gunship pilots. Following the restructuring of the X-Corps into the X-Corporation global mutant search and rescue organization, Madrox worked with the group's European branch for a time until a pitched battle against the living bacterial consciousness known as Weapon XII apparently cost the life of his teammate Darkstar. Madrox subsequently quit and struck out on his own, sending "long-term explorer dupes" around the world to learn new skills before returning to be reabsorbed. Madrox then established XXX Investigators in Mutant Town with Guido and Wolfsbane. His first case was to investigate the murder of one of his duplicates by an assassin named Clay, who also possessed the ability to create duplicates of himself, which led Madrox to Chicago and Sheila DeSoto, fiancée of multi-millionaire industrialist Edward Vance. Unbeknownst to Madrox, who had become romantically involved with Sheila, she was the one who had hired Clay to prevent Madrox from interfering in her plans to take control of the Chicago crime syndicate. Sheila was ultimately killed after she was revealed to be a self-styled highly evolved mutant.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Kinetic Duplication: Jamie Madrox creates an identical physical living duplicate of himself upon any physical impact, possibly via extradimensional mass acquisition similar to the process used by Ant-Man or the Hulk. This process is spontaneous and cannot be prevented by Madrox. Although he can create multiple duplicates, and the duplicates themselves can also replicate, each is only able to create one duplicate at a time; he has been seen to produce around forty duplicates before no more would be created. The duplicates think, feel, and act independently, though usually guided by the original. Each tends to manifest one aspect of Madrox's personality, which increases in strength with lengthier separation from the original; these traits have recently become more extreme. Madrox is telepathically and empathetically linked to his duplicates, suffering severe, potentially fatal, trauma if one dies. If Madrox himself were killed, it is not known whether any existing duplicates would continue to function independently; it is said in theory, that if the original Madrox was killed, that one of his active dupes is capable of taking over as the new original and will assume the dominant abilities and collective personality that the original Madrox had. It is virtually impossible to distinguish the original from the duplicates.

Duplication Absorption: The original Madrox can absorb them back into himself at will, at the same time absorbing the memories, skills and experiences of the duplicate

Duplication Healing: He also uses merging as a form of healing - Originally, uninjured Madri "shared" the damage when they reemerged (e.g., if an injured dupe merged with an uninjured Madrox, the resulting Madrox had an injury half as severe as the original injury). Now, however, the core Madrox can reabsorb injured or even near-dead dupes without taking on any of their physical injuries at all.

Known Abilities: Madrox has acquired extensive knowledge and skills via his duplicates' experiences, such as human anatomy, speaking Russian, and Shaolin monk stealth techniques. He also has hand to hand combat training, learned as part of X-Factor and from a dupe who studied martial arts.

Strength level

Jamie Madrox possesses the normal human strength of a man of his age, height, and build who engages in intensive regular exercise.

Appearances in Other Media

In the film X2, his name appears on a list of names Mystique scrolls through on Stryker's computer while looking for Magneto's file.

In the novelization of X2, Jamie has an expanded role as a student living at Xavier's having a sort of relationship with Siryn, who often unintentionally causes him to create duplicates of himself.

X-Men: The Last Stand includes Multiple Man, played by Eric Dane, being recruited into the Brotherhood of Mutants. He is an ex-bank robber (having robbed seven banks at the same time) and serves as a decoy for Magneto's Brotherhood, duplicating himself to appear as many people on satellite images, while the rest of the Brotherhood escape. He's rearrested by U.S Army troops after they escape.

In the X-Men animated series, Multiple Man appeared in the episode "Cold Comfort" as a member of X-Factor led by Havok.

The animated series X-Men: Evolution features Jamie Madrox under the codename Multiple, instead of Multiple Man. In the series, Jamie is a member of a "junior team" of X-Men, roughly equating to the New Mutants. The reason for the name change was that being a kid, assumed to be the youngest in the Evolution version of The New Mutants, he was not yet a Multiple "Man" in this instance. The young Jamie was extremely clumsy, his frequent pratfalls often triggering his powers.

In X-Men: The Official Game, Multiple Man appears as a villain, taking place right after his seven way robbery, he intends on blowing up a bridge, only to be stopped by Nightcrawler and Storm. He is last seen being taken away by police, and mentioned being placed under Secretary Trask's supervision.

In the video game X-Men Legends, Multiple Man (spelled as "Multipleman") makes a brief cameo on Muir Island. The Madri appear in the sequel, X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, but in the game, the Madri are cultists of Apocalypse who are not actually associated with Jamie Madrox.